Damn
by archivedfics2013
Summary: Not long after Alex has told Lucy to 'go to hell', April comes into Joe's and sits down at the bar. Alex comes over to sit next to her. Half-drunken bonding and discussion ensues. K plus for a little language.


**Title:** Damn  
><strong>Authour:<strong> boronia-lee  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Not long after Alex has told Lucy to 'go to hell', April comes into Joe's and sits down at the bar. Alex comes over to sit next to her. Half-drunken bonding and discussion ensues.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K+ for a little language.  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1380 words.  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I am not Shonda Rhimes, and therefore I mustn't own Grey's Anatomy. Shame.  
><strong>AN:** This is mainly just friendship, but I think a bit more romance slipped in there than I meant it to, which is weird, because I didn't think I shipped the two of them. However, if you'd prefer to just take this as entirely friendship, I think you could easily get away with that too.  
><strong>Note:<strong> I'm from Australia, and I spell some words differently to American phrasing.

… … …

He's kind of screwed. And kind of depressed. And so when he sees Kepner walk through the door and half-collapse onto a bar stool not far from where he's sitting, he welcomes the distraction. Even listening to her incessant high-pitched voice chattering away has got to be better than listening to the vindictive and spiteful thoughts in his head. And so he goes and sits down next to her.

She looks at him a bit like she'd look at something strange she's found growing in her fridge. Curious about it, but also slightly afraid to go near it. He can't really blame her.

"Distract me," he says without greeting. "Distract me with anything."

Luckily enough, she's got plenty on her mind. Plenty to offload onto him without a second thought. They've both got a lot to mull over, because, well, she's just been given chief resident and he's just told the only thing that has made him happy in a long time to 'go to hell', and they're both slightly in shock - wether it be in a good way or a bad way. And so she starts talking.

"I mean, I can't be chief resident," she babbles, not really to him, but not really to anyone in particular. "I'm nowhere near as experienced as the rest of you, people hardly respect me, I'll probably just crack up under the pressure - remember that time I hijacked an ambulance and threatened to run Dr Hunt down?- and I've only got the position by a fluke anyway!"

A twinge of something in his chest nudges him to speak. "A fluke? What?"

She rolls her eyes at him as though he's missing the obvious. "Well, obviously I was the last person anyone expected to get chief resident. But then Cristina didn't get it because Dr Hunt thinks she's a better surgeon and would hate the job, Jackson didn't get it because he didn't want it and he dropped the clinical trial, and you didn't get it because you're a bastard and you outed Meredith, which was the stupidest career move you've ever made." He goes to protest, but really, she's right. He is a bastard, a bastard who told his girlfriend to go to hell when she was willing to give up a huge career opportunity to stay with him, a bastard who lost the one friend he truly had because he was stupid and spiteful, and a bastard who the girl next him would have every reason not to ever speak to again, considering how he's treated her in the past. "It should have been Meredith's, she deserved it, she would have been so good at it too, and if you hadn't told Hunt about the Alzheimer's trials this position would have been hers!"

"So, really, you owe me the biggest step-up in your career you'll ever get?" he asks. She glares at him.

"You're a bastard," she repeats.

"Yeah," he replies resignedly. "Yeah." They sit in silence for a few more minutes, mulling over their own thoughts.

"You'll be a good chief resident," he says out of nowhere. She stares at him. "I mean, you're organised, and you have those stupid chart things and boss us into using them anyway. And people respect you more than you think."

She laughs bitterly. "Are you kidding me? I'm the annoying 28-year-old virgin that bugs everyone. Jackson likes me, Meredith puts up with me, and the rest of you can't stand me."

"I can stand you," he says before thinking. She stares at him again. "I mean - I just - I'm sitting here, aren't I? I'm listening to you babble in my ear about all your troubles and I haven't told you to go to hell yet."

A small smile appears on her face. "Yet."

He can't argue with that.

They sit in silence for a little longer, sipping their drinks at the bar and staring into space looking morose when he turns his head to stare at her. She's fiddling with the rim of her glass, tracing it with her finger, twice clockwise and then twice anticlockwise, twice clockwise and once anticlockwise. It's almost like a trance, around and around, and back, around and around, and back, around and around, and back …

She's pretty, he notices. Dishevelled and tired and worn-out and pretty. She has nice hair. And sort of soft features that make her look a little vulnerable, but in a nice way. As though life has yet to scar her, though he knows that isn't true. Her eyes are so expressive, giving away her emotions no matter how hard she tries to hide them. She's an open book, and with all the goddamn lies and deception that go on around him, it's like pulling his head out of the water. It makes it easier to breathe. It feels nice.

"You're staring at me."

He blinks and remembers who he is. "I was not," he scoffs.

"You were!" she rebuts, her voice raising an octave. "You were looking at me with this strange, dreamy, far-away look."

"I wasn't."

"You know you were."

"Whatever."

"Whatever."

They glare at each other.

"Why am I even talking to you?" he asks out loud, more to himself than to her.

"What have I ever done to you!" she protests. "I should be the one not talking to you."

"You got Avery to punch me."

"I didn't ask Avery to punch you, but I won't deny it made me feel a bit better. You deserved that, which is exactly my point. You're lucky I'll even look at you after what happened then."

"Lucky? Yeah, right."

She glares at him. Again. "The fact that you're still sitting here and arguing with me about this proves me right. If you didn't want to talk to me, you wouldn't have come and sat down next to me at the bar. There are plenty of other places to sit. You're sitting next to me." She doesn't say this with a smug voice as he expects her to - rather, she sounds slightly bewildered.

"Yeah, well, I didn't want to look like an idiot getting drunk and being lonely at a bar, and as you pointed out before: I'm not really hugely popular at the moment."

"So I was a last resort?" She looks as though she might care about that for a moment, but shrugs it off in a rather uncharacteristic manner. "That's … not really surprising, I guess."

"Why not?" God, why was he even continuing this conversation? This was _April Kepner_. Quite literally the most irritating person in the world. But … well, he supposed she wasn't so bad at the moment. Tolerable, perhaps. With a few glasses of alcohol in the two of them, she was almost pleasant company.

"Um, because apart from you right now, I'm probably the least-liked person at the hospital."

"What about Stark?"

The corners of her mouth tighten a little, but otherwise her expression remains normal. "People passively dislike him. People hate _us_ for specific reasons. It's different."

And, damn, but it's probably true. "Aw, crap," he says. "Now I'm going to _have_ to be your friend." He pauses, his guilty conscience (the one most people think he doesn't possess) nudging at him. "Assuming you'll actually talk to me when you're not drunk. I'd deserve it if you didn't."

She raises her eyebrows at him, a small but, well, kind of gorgeous smile rising up to her lips. "Was that an _apology_?"

"Not really. It was a … a recognition of the idiocy and stupidity of my actions. I'm sorry too, though."

She smiles wider, her whole face lighting up. "Wow. I feel like I should have taped that or something. Alex Karev, admitting he was wrong and apologising all in a few breaths." She giggles. "Are you feeling okay?"

He shrugs, a half-smile tugging at the edges of his lips. "Hey, I've been known to be a reasonable human being on occasion."

"I'm counting on that, if we're going to be friends."

He smiles in earnest. "Really?"

She smiles back happily, biting her lip a little. "Yeah. I guess so."

With a weird feeling, he realised he was actually, genuinely happy about being her friend.

Damn.

… … …

**A/N:** I don't know. This was weird and rushed and I'm confused about what I just wrote. Um, please review?*Cowers from your flames."


End file.
